This Inuit woman, photographed by the Scottish botanist-explorer Isobel Wylie Hutchison in the 1920s, is dressed in her colourful traditional national costume. The most characteristic part of this outfit is perhaps the "kamiker", or heel-less sealskin top-boots, which reach up to the knee in the case of men, but well above that in the case of women, as illustrated here. The outer surface of the women's boots is dyed white, scarlet, or blue, and decorated with abstract geometrical patterns of brightly-coloured leather strips. There is a removable inner lining which keeps the feet and legs warm. Hutchison found that such footwear was essential, not only for negotiating the slippery rocks and shingle, but for protection against insect bites.

From randafricanart.com. And I think I read the following from Shaman: the wounded healer by Joan Halifax:

This art is not art for art, rather it is art for survival for it gives structure and coherence to the unfathomable and intangible. By ‘making’ that which is the unknown, the shaman attains some degree of control over the awesome forces of the mysterium.